The present invention relates to couplings for fluid controllers, and more particularly to fluid controller couplings which are designed for use in fluid control apparatus included in semiconductor manufacturing equipment and which are useful, for example, for on-off valves provided for a massflow controller to hold the channels of the valves in communicate with each other.
The terms "upper" and "lower" as used herein refer respectively to the upper and lower sides of the drawings. However, these terms are used for the sake of convenience; the shutoff-opening device to be described below will be mounted on a horizontal surface, for example, in the state shown in FIG. 1 or as turned upside down, or may be attached to a vertical surface.
In the case of the fluid control apparatus included in semiconductor manufacturing equipment, a plurality of valves are usually arranged at each of the inlet side and the outlet side of a massflow controller. The valves as arranged in a row are removably mounted on a blocklike coupling from above to provide a shutoff-opening device as a unit instead of interconnecting the valves by tubing (see JP-A No. 241400/1994). Each of the valves has an inlet and an outlet in its bottom face, and the blocklike coupling is formed with an inflow channel and an outflow channel as positioned in conformity with the positions of the inlet and the outlet. The valves are removably mounted on the coupling from above so that the valves of the shutoff-opening device as mounted on a base plate can be individually inspected or replaced.
One fluid control apparatus has many shutoff-opening devices, which can be diversified in specifications. Some of the shutoff-opening devices have two or four valves, and some are different in the interval between the valves and accordingly in the positions of the valve inlets and outlets. An inlet-outlet subopening serving as an inlet or outlet for other fluid may be additionally provided between the inlet and the outlet of at least one valve. The conventional shutoff-opening devices have the problem of being composed of many different members which are difficult to standardize because even if some of such devices are different in the position of one outlet alone, there arises a need to prepare a new blocklike coupling.
When the coupling in the form of a block has an opening at each of its opposite ends, the channel through the coupling is relatively easy to make, whereas if the coupling has an opening only at one end, it becomes necessary to form an opening also at the other end and thereafter close this opening, hence the problem of necessitating a cumbersome procedure for forming the channel. It is further required that the fluid control apparatus be made lightweight, but the blocklike coupling is disadvantageous in reducing the weight of the apparatus.